298 AN ANGLER AT LARGE 



possibilities that lay in his sporting chance. But 

 what about me ? I have a competence ; I eat 

 three square meals a day ; I wear warm, if slovenly 

 clothes ; I go about at my pleasure ; I sit in the 

 dress circle ; I travel second-class ; I subscribe to 

 Boots ; I smoke the best tobacco ; I fish in chalk 

 streams ; I possess Rose Dore at three shillings a 

 tube ; I live like a lord whose estate is not too 

 seriously encumbered. And for the first thirty 

 years of my life I did not begin to pay expenses. 

 I have been the death of many thousands of 

 pounds and I have not earned enough, if spread 

 over the whole of my life, to keep me from starving. 

 In a word I am one of the undeserving rich. 



Old Bunting is seventy-five. He rises at four in 

 the morning and goes to bed at nine in the evening. 

 Between those hours he rests perhaps for four. 

 He can make hay, he can hedge and ditch, he can 

 plough and sow and reap and mow, and be a 

 farmer's septuagenarian. He has raised a large 

 family of strong admirable citizens. He lives on 

 bread and tea and beer and cabbage and bacon 

 and a little tinned salmon and a little beef. He 

 smokes something called Coolie Cut. The price 

 of my reel is a week's living to Old Bunting. 



And he is contented, nay, happy; delights in 

 hedging ; mows with gratitude. 



Why, in the name of Injustice ? Why ? 



